week 4.5

It's only the last day of January and I have spring fever. When the sun shines as it has the last few days, and the morning gets warm I want to be outside. I fell behind on my 365 Project but managed  to catch up. These are Cards 26-31.

I'm going through glue sticks like nobody's business. Back-to-school sale, where are you when I need you?

I don't know what kind of ink my bottle of Aladinne blue is, but it doesn't play nice with Dr Ph Martin's inks. It's a little less permanent & sort of mixed with Dr Martin's yellow, making a muddy blotch behind Carmen Miranda. One of those "happy accidents" Bob Ross used to mention. Happy no doubt, but it convinced me I needed to get some blue ink that would play more nicely.

GOT NIGHTMARES?

If I could remember my dreams and write them down I'd have a sci-fi best seller.

week 4

It's been a good week for art although some days it's a struggle to come up with an idea I like. My black Pitt pens arrived and so did my Dr Ph Martin's Bombay Ink, so I have new toys to play with.

#20 Savoir Faire

Acrylic paint & collage on cardboard that didn't take kindly to water.

#21 Lithium City

Blue Aladine ink on a shipping label with acrylic & collage. The ink washed nicely with some interesting patterns along the wrinkled paper.

#22 Red & Blue Geometry

#23 Attending the Phone

#24 ink test

Bombay inks: Bright Red, Golden Yellow and Grass Green. I will be getting more of these inks!

#25 mauled

Imitating John Evans and learning to draw again.

#26 magic coffee

Aladine blue ink over Hansa Yellow acrylic paint and found art. I was surprised the ink turned to green when it was diluted. Did it mix with the acrylic somehow or is it really still blue and creating an optical illusion?

week 3

Week three of 365 Somethings has gone pretty well, and I've made five more collages. I've been able to mostly do one every day, although once again I had to catch up and do two collages after another busy day.

I find I quite enjoy making time each day for a little creative project. I have no particular time set for art although it's usually an afternoon activity. Sometimes I am taking a break from something else, but I make sure to concentrate on what I'm doing and not to think about other stuff.

If things continue this way, I will soon have an art habit. It supposedly takes about 21 days to create a habit, so I'm only two days away.

Here are the latest five:

#15 - Accidents Will Happen

I liked the subdued green and tan palette I used last week and wanted to try it with red. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Tried to unify elements with crayon scrawls.

#16 - Chicken Feed

Back to green & tan. I once had some fluid acrylic in Jenkins Green, but I must have used it up. I am still finding art supplies here and there and wondering where my wooden burnisher has got to.

#17 - Rethink Again. Technology is a Crap Shoot.

The painted background was one I did way back with Jenkins Green over Hansa Yellow on a Kraft envelope. It's almost the last piece of that batch of experiments.

#18 - Get In Trouble

Playing with red & yellow just for fun. Title from a book of short stories by Kelly Link that I read. Funny, weird, scary stuff. What imagination!

#19 - Navigating the Road of Life

Kiddos and their little red wagons. No clue where they're going. It's a good thing too.

week two

I've been able to collage enough cards to take me to the end of Week 2 of the 365 Somethings Project. There were a couple of days when  household chores took precedence over everything else, but I gave myself permission to catch up over the next few days, as long I didn't get TOO far behind. So some of these pieces were created across two or more days.  I am still experimenting with different color combinations, papers, and pens. I must have used up my favorite black pens as they are not to be found. New ones are on their way here though.

 

Gaudy but Good

On a Distant Planet a Horse Howls at the Moon

Ink Wash Background, Watercolors, Black Sharpie

Shiner

Going To Pieces in America

Subdued on Corrogated Cardboard

How do you start your day?

MORNING JOLT AT TURBINE NUMBER FOUR

(pay no attention to the man with the crank)

Day 7

I found some old unopened ink bottles and tried painting with the inks, which included the blue squiggles on the above collage. I was pretty happy with how easily the ink covered and how quickly it dried. My other experiment compared how the ink looked when applied in different ways to a cold press watercolor paper and to another paper with a smooth surface, and what happened when I drew lines across the dried ink with different pens. I'm not sure what the smooth paper is, but I like the results enough that I want to get some hot press watercolor paper and some more colored inks to play with.

Paper on left is smooth board. Paper on right is Arches Aquarelle cold press watercolor paper.

Brown: calligraphy ink in sepia, made in England, maker unknown. 

Darkest blue: Pelikan ink in Cobalt, made in Germany

Turquoise blue: Aladine ink in undetermined blue, made in France

Day 8

Another color combination I don't normally think about using: hot pink & bright yellow.

after John Evans

I recently got a copy of John Evans - Collages and thought I would try emulating his work. He used found items and ink on the series of 8 1/2 x 11 inch collages in this book. I had no ink handy so I used what was at hand. I experimented with my own found images, with watercolor, acrylic, brushes and pens.

It's fun to be a beginner.

Luv ya Blues!

Experiment mixing deep reds & blues. I love both colors but don't usually think about putting them together. I like the effect. Clancy the Giraffe is not so sure.

 After staring at this collage for a time, I think I would have liked it better if I had turned the card 90 degrees counterclockwise but let Clancy remain upright. He still looks uncertain, though.

Puccini

This is one of those collages that mostly made itself, my usual "modus operandi", but I didn't mind slipping into an old habit today. And really, if these pieces wish to congregate, who am I to prevent them?

I spent most of yesterday going through three boxes of old clippings, discarding many images and color combinations I no longer like so much. This morning I tackled a fourth box. Organizing my clippings hasn't worked for me in the past, but I divided what papers I had left into three broad categories: people, larger pieces for backgrounds or color combinations, and non-human creatures mixed with type. Into the now-empty fourth box I dumped my "snide remarks" and "teeny tinies" from three smaller boxes. In effect, I downsized from seven to four boxes. Along the way Puccini and Japan ran into one another.

During the sorting process I got ideas for some new compositions, and I spread those items out on the kitchen table, and added a brief note to each pile about my idea. We'll see how or if this form of organization works.

Day 3

I tested some old pens today to see if they still work. What doesn't work gets trashed, and stuff I don't like gets donated somewhere as part of my ongoing "decluttering" project.

I worked on this immediately after breakfast, which is unusual for me, but I'm trying out different times of day for making art. Morning still isn't my best time even after two cups of coffee.

I'm also trying to do things I normally wouldn't do. In this case it was omitting text & extra clippings and adding pen work. The background was made yesterday because I didn't want to waste the paint I had squeezed out of the tubes for yesterday's project. I think I may want to start each day's project with a blank card. That'll be different.

Therma Tru

I started with labels peeled from my new front door (my old door was severely damaged when someone kicked it), added clippings & acrylic paint. I'm getting reacquanted with some of my old favorite paint colors: Hansa Yellow, Pyrrole Red and Phthalocyanine Green (mixed with some light green).

happy new year!

First collage of 2018! Yay!

Do you recognize Tyra Banks?
This collage came about because I was sorting through lots of clippings, and also Christmas ornaments, trying to turn 5 boxes of stuff into 4 boxes of stuff. I did well with the  ornaments, and not so well with the paper. My note on the back of the collage reads "Paper, paper, everywhere".

I was thinking about posting my new collages once a week, but I may post more often just to encourage myself. This project is for ME, aftr all. I'm so happy I made something on Day One of 2018!